


Egg-xpert Maneuvers

by AithuzahFic (veritably_mad)



Series: The Egg-cident [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25325656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritably_mad/pseuds/AithuzahFic
Summary: In which Will tries to teach Aithusa tricks and Merlin wants him to respect the dignity of her species.
Series: The Egg-cident [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/243601
Comments: 7
Kudos: 36





	Egg-xpert Maneuvers

**Author's Note:**

> Did I think of the egg pun first and the concept for this chapter second? Maybe. You’ll never know. 
> 
> Also, if Aithusa’s dialogue sounds off it’s because she’s a baby dragon who’s technically already fluent in one language already, and not because I spend no time around kids and don’t know how they talk at any age or stage of language development.

“Please stop treating my dragon like a dog,” Merlin said reproachfully. 

Will ignored him and continued waving a stick at Aithusa while she batted and snapped at it, trilling happily. 

“Well, she does act a lot like a cat sometimes, I’ll give you that.”

“ _Will_.”

“What? She’s having fun.”

Merlin couldn’t argue with that. Classes had started a few weeks ago, and while the school had granted a number of accommodations for Merlin’s... _unusual_ circumstances, Aithusa tended to get restless and grumpy whenever Merlin spent more than ten minutes in class or studying. Meaning she spent a _lot_ of time grumbling, gnawing on her favorite bone at Merlin’s feet in class or trying to steal his pen as he worked on assignments. Once, she snagged his entire laptop from the table _as he was using it_ and tried to drop it out a window before he’d caught it with his magic.

They had brought her to Merlin’s mum’s house for the weekend so she could stretch her wings in the relative privacy of the backyard, rather than trying to find a spot on campus that wasn’t crowded with students soaking up the warm weather. Nosy, noisy, _handsy_ students. Merlin had fended off too many attempts to touch her wings or pull her tail because _wow, I didn’t think it was real, you know?_ for comfort. 

The fresh air, open space, and undivided attention (well, _mostly_ undivided—Merlin was reading his zoology textbook while Will kept her occupied) were already working wonders for her mood. 

“That’s not the point,” he argued anyway. “She’s not some common housepet—pretty soon she’ll be smarter than both of us combined.” 

“She can be smart and still like pulling off sweet flips.”

“Sweet flips!” Aithusa chirped back, and Will cackled. Sometimes Merlin thought she knew _exactly_ what to say to annoy him the most. A result of Will’s bad influence, undoubtedly. At this point, he was the only other human she was willing to listen to, and so the only person who could look after her when Merlin was unavailable. 

“D’you wanna try flying again?” Will asked her. “The sooner you master that, the sweeter the flips you can learn.”

Aithusa wriggled and twisted herself around Will’s feet in excitement before taking a running leap straight into Merlin’s lap where he sat against the trunk of the yard’s lone tree, forcing him to fling his textbook to the side or risk her claws shredding right through the pages. 

“Flying time! Come play! You’ll help, Merlin? Please!” The dragonling switched between her natural language and English as she chattered at him, then landed decidedly on English as she shouted, “I want to learn sweet flips!’

Merlin looked Will dead in the eye. “You are the worst possible influence,” he said as his horrible best friend doubled over and wheezed with laughter. Aithusa sat on her hind legs and stretched her neck to catch Merlin’s attention. He lowered his voice. “Yes, of course I’ll help you. Your first challenge is to climb to the top of Will’s head while he’s flailing around like an idiot. Try to flap your wings to help you up, instead of just using them for balance.”

She nodded and took off across the lawn. Will was just barely recovering when her sharp little claws scrabbled for purchase on his legs and clothes, startling a squawk out of him as her shimmery wings beat furiously to aid her climb. Merlin knew from experience that she caught skin more often than not, despite her best efforts—and while this may have been her best _climbing_ effort, it was certainly not her best effort to avoid harming her human launching pad. 

“Sorry. Sorry!” she said each time he yelped. She may have learned how to use the word, but she hadn’t grasped how to _mean_ it quite yet.

By the time she reached the top of Will’s head, fluttering her wings with pride and looking to Merlin for the next step, Will was scratched up and glowering. Merlin smiled at him innocently. They’d both had far worse roughhousing and exploring as children, and Merlin had learned more than a few light healing spells over the years to accommodate both their recklessness and clumsiness. 

“Ready!” Aithusa called. 

“Remember to mind your claws around humans,” Merlin reminded her belatedly. “We don’t have tough scales like you do.”

“Sorry,” she said again, and loosened her grip on Will’s hair. 

_Bastard_ , Will mouthed at him. Merlin tilted his head and tapped his middle finger against his chin in a nice, subtle, kid-friendly _fuck you, too_. 

“Try gliding first. Stretch your wings out, jump, and try to stay steady in the air for as long as you can.” 

With a silent incantation, Merlin stirred the air in the yard into a gentle breeze. Aithusa clumsily leapt from her perch—clumsy only as a result of avoiding digging her talons into Will’s skull for leverage—and giggled with delight as the warm wind caught and lifted her. Despite her agility on the ground, the lack of muscle development in her wings left her wobbly and uncertain in the air, though she suffered no lack of enthusiasm. 

After she landed, they used the lowest tree branch as a launch point to save Will’s skin from further perforation. She practiced turns, gaining height, safely landing—if she began to fall from too great a height, Will or Merlin(‘s magic) was there to catch her. This was their third flying session, in addition to regular wing strength exercises (all of which were detailed in the dragon care packet Merlin had received), and already she barely needed the safety net. 

Merlin could tell she was getting tired, and thankfully, she knew it, too. 

“Just one more.” She waited for Merlin’s nod before clambering up to her launch branch. 

Aithusa lowered her body, tail lashing like a cat’s as she readied for the jump. After one last wriggle, her strong hind legs thrust her forward, wings snapping wide open—and then a purposeful beat of her wings, her long neck tipping up and backwards, and she executed a perfect mid-air somersault before gliding onto the top of Will’s head for the last time.

The two of them gaped at each other before bursting into applause, Aithusa preening under the attention.

Even Merlin had to admit, that was one sweet flip.

**Author's Note:**

> The full summary in my doc was "in which Will tries to teach Aithusa tricks and Merlin wants him to respect the dignity of her species but is also super impressed at that aerial backflip she just pulled off" and the rest was literally just those first five lines of dialogue until tonight, at which point I reread what I had and suddenly couldn’t get The Adventure Zone (home of “Oh Shit, Sweet Flips,” Team Sweet Flips, and Flip Wizard Taako) out of my head while writing about Aithusa’s cool backflip. So, sorry-not-sorry about all the sweet flip talk, but it does kinda feel like the right kind of dumb shit Will might say in this AU. 
> 
> { [come say hi!](https://aithuzah.tumblr.com/) }


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